This Video nees about a few thousand views more! Nice explanation, I like your style of scraping, not leaving a heavy burr at the end of the stroke. Your german pronouciation of Biax was perfect! I have a Renz powerscraper too, but mine has adjustable stroke.
Thank you Stefan. I enjoy your channel. This type of scraping works for me, but everyone has their own style. Hand scraping is hard work no matter how you do it. TH-cam is fascinating because you can learn how other pronounce words. I did study German for 1 year in college. I have probably forgotten most of it by now. There is not much opportunity to practice.
This was incredibly helpful. The entire walkthrough of the different steps, seeing your workflow and everything. Just wow, big thanks for such amazing content.
Thank you Wes, you have such an awesomely broad range of talents that is really rare to see in these days of specialization . You always have a down to earth attitude that makes you a favourite with many viewers! Well done . Hey
This is probably one of the best scraping videos I've ever seen. Very much down and dirty, not fancy and mystical like some make scraping out to be. I am going to try this method on my next scraping project. Very well done!
Scraping is not magic. However, it's very much about finding what works for you. All I can do is show you what I have found to work for me. I won't say it's the best way or the right way. It's a starting point.
I've probably watched this vid 10-15 times lol...... Really hard to find a scraping videos that have both, a person that knows what their doing and is interesting to watch. I really hope your still thinking bout possibly doing more scraping vids Wes, maybe even with some of your insight on how you check geometry on dovetails and whatnot. Hope all is well and to see ya soon.
Thank you so much for your vids. It's great to see how somebody in the trade would do scraping, diagnoses and repair where time is $$. I also appreciate your concise delivery and great tips. I'm a new subscriber and just found your channel through Hobby Machinist. I hope you get time to do the cross slide dove tails on the Chinese lathe as I would love to see how you would approach it.
Well I was not expecting that, i was looking into scraping and Watch Wes Works comes up. Very helpful and interesting seeing how your Chanel has changed
Thank you for such a well explained way to hand scrap. Watched a few videos on it byt first time I have seen used two colours to pick up the high and low points. From kiwi land.
I've watched a lot of scraping videos and this must be the best. You have made the process practical as opposed to anal and you don't need to be Richard King or own a $1500 Biax to get a decent level flatness. Thanks from the UK ! BTW I came to your channel after a shoutout from Rainman Ray's Repairs - and he's never seen rust !
Nicely explained Wes, you are absolutely right about the roughing stage needs to be done right before moving on to the semi finishing strokes. I like the fact you talked about both print mediums, I've not used anything other than the oil based one here in the U K, but now I'm used to it I'm happy with it. just wished they made a contrasting colour, so now I might try and mix one up. cheers for the upload, all the best, Mat
Helpful vid, saw many valuable points and hints. Thanks a lot. would like to add some comment. Regular radial bearing case could be used to remove rough edges after scraping, instead of stone. To reduce abrasive exposure. Also regarding dovetails, how do you clean them after stoning? To work with hardly accessible surfaces like small dovetail inner parts, it is possible to create small scraper from stone\glass drill bit, spear headed. This "spear head" has almost same quality carbide as special scraper inserts. Despite the price difference, but it's a fact. Scrapers made out of drill bits rather well deal with soft cast iron like that coming from Chinese factories. Their drawback is lesser ability to keep sharpness, but again taking into account the price... Just remove extra metall at the base and flatten carbide insert in desired radius. Best cutting angle is around 110-115 degrees. Though i personally prefer to correct such surfaces in mill using some dedicated tool, like dovetail cutter, to decrease hand scraping amount as much as possible. This is really an action which produces thoughts about finding more heavy intellect means to achieve desired results.
It is AMAZING how such a seemingly primitive technique can yield such precise results and still be in use today. I have seen old metal scraping films, but thought that the technique would have long been superseded by modern micro polishing techniques.
It's easy to become frustrated with scraping, especially when trying to correct wear. It's a process that can't really be hurried along. Thanks for stopping by!
10:30 That's a sweet Buttress thread vise. I could see it being handy for scraping since it allows for such quick adjustment and you don't have to worry about cleaning chips out of the nut as often as you would if you used it on a machine. Thanks for the awesome video.
Hi Wes, thought I would pop back and let you know of a trick I just figured for a background colour - I used a sharpie over the surface and then a drop of mineral spirit to dissolve the sharpie mark - smeared it over and then in a minute or two the solvent was evaporated and I could print the regular oil based blue medium I use. Worked a treat and Ive plenty of sharpie colours ! Cheers Mat
I never even heard about this process until I watched a video by Lookcreations and just presumed all surface plates, surface tables and precision flat surface tools were done on a machine. The issue now is that I need to have a go at this in some way or another!
As a former scraper from 1977 to 1983, I enjoyed watching someone else scraping, and agree with what you say about saving time by switching techniques as things progress. It took me a couple years to learn that, as I progressed in my skills. Old worn out machinery can be many thousandths off, and I was taught by other scrapers to do just what you do! I still have my old tools, Prussian blue, and red lead, and wonder if I can still do it, I used to be as good as you! I also lifted at the end of the short finishing stroke and gave it a left-handed curl, giving straightedges and surface plates a beautiful frosty appearance! Machine tool surfaces got a 12-14 point finish with good oil retention, alignment to other machine members was most important.
Wow whilst surfing through your old videos I came across this one on scraping. No doubt a useful skill to have but it comes with one definite attribute that of patience. I being lacking in that department couldn't be bothered. Metal engineering tolerances are a bit much for me I will stick to wood it is more forgiving. Interesting video and yet another example of your versatility.
You made the two you made really look nice natural to actually scrap with. I thought the copper, metal, wood, Delron were made in the 50's or 60's. We watched Stefan's Channel do scrapping at a school in Germany there and then back at his shop channel. You have a really nice setup, we are hopping to scrap one vintage machine we have to do. Thank you for our lesson, lots of practice roughing (proper prep) then finishing (great results) before we ever try this on our small machine. Half ways through the video I learn what you mean about leaning into the tool, hence the large Delron disk at the end of your tool.
Great video! Nice overview on your scraping. One thing though, the Canode isn't actually water based, it's water soluble. It is very thick and a little sticky, as you say, as well as the other issues, but if you don't dilute it with water it will NEVER rust your work. I leave it on CI for days between scraping sessions. I'll try to find out what the carrier fluid is. If I need to thin it I've been using denatured alcohol. It flashes off quick and no rust issues. Keep up the great videos.
Very helpful video Wes, thanks very much for this! :) The visibility of the black spotting compound seems quite good, I think I'll go find some of that mortar color :) One thing I noticed, all the books and videos I've studied about scraping indicate that the individual strokes should be made side-by-side, in rows that are 45 degrees across the part. The claim is that it leads to chatter in a sliding surface if you line the strokes up in "vertical" rows. I don't suppose it matters much during roughing and it looked like you did the side-by-side stroke rows in the finish pass, but just thought I'd mention for whatever it's worth. I love the handmade scrapers, very practical :) Also, it looked like you position the part down just above your knees, is that so you can push the scraper with your hip? Btw, on the Canode, they say to "thin" that with very thin vegetable oil (safflower maybe); using water could explain some of the bad behavior it was exhibiting.
I have heard of others thinning Canode with window cleaner. I have not tried that. Window cleaner is mostly alcohol, so it seems like it would flash off too quickly. Connely advocates the 45 degree rows in his book. I usually line my scraper up at 90 degrees, but the actual scrape marks are not 90 degrees to each other because of the way I lift out when scraping. The same thing happens with the Biax. The longer the stroke, the more you see the effect. The result is that the actual scrape marks are more like 45-60 degrees to each other.
You might say, you have to get to the point where your lows become the highs before you move on to finishing. An angle plate is not a bearing surface. Scraping a bearing surface requires small individual scrapes of about .0002-.0003” for oil retention. And, flaking is to be done on the underside contact points. This is what I learned in Richard King’s (Kingway) scraping class.
..."Chinese angle plate".....well, like Stefan Gotteswinter says...."You're getting a bunch of cast iron parts as a sort of 'kit' to finish.....Excellent finish...!
Nice job Wes....too bad a guy cannot like on every view!....about the 6th time I watched, and sure I will watch again! Trying to get up to speed a bit, before taking one of Rich's classes, but not sure that my "old" arms will take it. I did pick up a Biax, but am sure it is best to start with the basics ....thanks for the detailed explanation.....off to watch you Biax vid again.
I threw out several hundred pounds of that concrete dye a while back. I could have made a 100x lifetime supply of scraping pigment, in all the colors of the rainbow!
Thanks for posting videos Wes, very good instruction. Both you and Stephen Gotteswinter provide informative instructional vids. I used this knowledge to scrape in a cross-slide on s small chickety-china lathe, worked well. Do you take requests? You do everything relating to machining equipment, manual and NC, cornucopia of knowledge. I have a haas sl30 ( sorry ) , and want to know how do maintenance on the turret. You did a very good turret alignment episode on the slant bed. Curious if haas turrets need to be disassembled and cleaned/lubricated periodically. Thanks Wes J.
I believe that Haas uses compressed air to clamp the turret which is odd. I don't know of any other builder doing that. Other than keeping the curvic coupling clean, there's not much that needs to be done to the turret.
Thank you for such a great video, it answered a lot of my questions missed by others... any chance on some details on your scraper blades and their shapes? it's really hard to find pictures and details on the exact shape and grinds :)
I will try to make more scraping videos in the future. I want to make a video that covers some of the gaps in other videos and a video about alignments. Scraping is a boring and tedious job, so it's difficult to make a scraping video that's actually watchable.
I still haven't quit figured out how you get your marking die to that consistency. Yours looks like a heavy grease and not too sticky. When I mix mine with 30 weight or way oil no matter how thick I mix it eventually slumps to the bottom of the container. If its really think it acts almost like a non newtonian fluid and is very sticky. It seems to work well and sometimes I thin it with denatured alcohol that helps, I'm just curious. I think I have some of that old blueish green x-tra heavy wheel grease, I guess I could try that.
Hello. Thank you for your great video. Would u please tell me how to clean oil based pigment from surface plate. Does it clean by ammonia or wd 40? Best regards. Thank you
Great video. I learned a whole lot here. One question. How do you maintain the perpendicularity of the angle block? 90.000 degrees, means 90.000 degrees, right? Do you do rough in, then measure a whole bunch of times for angle, average the results, adjust the rough in and go again?
I swear I replied to your question, but it seems to be gone now. Scraping for alignment is a whole other subject. The best way is to compare the angle plate to a known master square. If you don't have a known master square, you have to use 2 or 3 angle plates and compare them to each other while scraping and eventually the errors will cancel out. The Moore book "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" covers the topic thoroughly. Typically the alignment is set in the rough scraping. You would check periodically while finish scraping to be sure you do not move the surface out of alignment. It's far more tedious than just scraping a surface flat.
I've got a set of big machinist parallels about 3ft long and a lonely 2ft parallel (or maybe vise versa I forget which size I have a set of) and I'm wondering how you decide between having a smooth finish or a scraped finish. I know putting them on a grinding machine is a good "roughing" (relatively speaking) procedure prior to lapping or scraping for overall parallelism, but I'm unsure about the advantages to scrapped verses a smooth surface for the final product. I am aware that the scrapped finish helps distribute a film of oil when it is used for something like machine ways, but given the use of machinist parallels I hope to not see the same sliding motion experienced by the machine ways. Truthfully I don't own any machinery remotely big enough like a big horizontal boring mill or metal planer to make regular use out of the parallels, but I would still like the project of doing some finishing work on them. I'd love your advice before spending lots of time hand scraping them, or even more time lapping them into a surface finish that can be wrung too. Thanks in advance, -Adam
One advantage of a scraped surface is there is no heating to cause the work piece to distort like there is with grinding. Another is that the surface holds oil better, much like cross hatching in a cylinder bore. Not so much an issue with angle plates and straight edges, but very important for machine ways.
My lathe (South Bend 9) has a wee bit of 'ridging on the last 20% of the Cast Iron Bearing surface chuck side.....they say to hone off any high spots but don't try to stone it down......any advise, which honing device, and what technique? The spindle has a few deposits of CI corresponding to the bearing....ordered a set of EZ-Lap diamond hoaners and have access to another lathe..
To work for printing, a solid pigment has to be particles smaller than the thickness of the color film. That's *really* tiny, and I don't think chalk particles are small enough.
Nice job explaining how to scrape, Wes! I'm very curious about your home-made marking medium. I've used both Dykem high-spot blue and Canode (both yellow and blue) and I agree about the downsides of water based spotting inks. Is there any particular mortar pigment you'd recommend? Would artists dry pigments work just as well? (Seems like 4oz of pigment would be sufficient for plenty of scraping). I REALLY like the high contrast of your marking media, but both the red and black appear to be awfully thick. Is there any problem with the grain size of the pigment? As you mention, I'm used to spreading Canode so thinly that it's quite transparent. I'm used to spreading the yellow base layer so thinly that it's dry to the touch and just the lightest haze of yellow. That Canode can be spread so thin is good, but the low contrast markup (and non-ideal lighting in my shop) is killing my eyes. If dry pigments and oil can be spread just as thin, doesn't dry out, provides high contrast, and works even reasonably well for scraping blue-ups, I'm going to be seriously indebted. :-)
There is no silver bullet. The homebrew I use works well for roughing and scraping machine tool ways. It's not the greatest for precision scraping more than 20 points per square inch. You can do it, but you have to be really careful how thick you apply it. Also, the thickness of the paste is really important. If it's too thick, you can't spread it enough to get a fine print. If it's too thin it won't transfer. The pigment is a form of iron oxide. The particle size is supposed to be 3 microns, so its extremely fine. Mixed with oil, it's not abrasive in any way. It's basically a grease, which is normally oil thickened with something like clay or soap. There are lots of recipes. I know a guy who still uses red lead mixed with a type of wax. It's actually a dry cake. He spreads it using a rag wet with wd-40. Then he uses Dykem blue as the contrasting color. I think I will make a video on the subject in the near future.
Hey, thanks for the quick reply! I'm definitely going to give it a try. Even if I end up using something else for the final stages (I've even used the haze from dried alcohol for the ultimate final check) it's still a huge win for me if it provides better contrast. I'm looking forward to giving it a shot. Please do make a video on the subject!
I've used oil based pigments mixed with all purpose grease. Applied thin it works quite well. When you're done for the day, to clean your hands just use any vegetable oil like corn or safflower to "soap" up your hands and then dry them with a paper towel. Oil cleans up oil better than water and won't lead to dry, cracked skin like repetitively using soap and water does. This cleanup trick works just as well if you get your hands greasy working on your car a lot.
Nice vidio I am learning too but Chinese angle plate! Would it worth scraping cause you leave it for a year it would twist distort etc.I don't trust Chinese cause they cast in the cheapest way to get the object look alike. My two cents is you rubbing stone should have hole in the middle and you should stick to figure eight and spend more time on hand lapping(remove sharp point).
If you're talking about the granite, that is not countertop. It is a 'surface plate', and its only purpose is to be very, incredibly, flat and stable. Countertops aren't thick enough to be stable, and are nowhere near flat enough. On top of that, many countertops aren't even solid granite - they're composites, meaning they're granite 'gravel' mixed with epoxy.
Late to the party, but the advantage of scraping over a machined (ground) surface is that the scraped surface has slight depressions between the high spots that can hold oil. So if you have two sliding surfaces, the scraped one will hold oil between the surfaces whereas the ground surface can squish the oil out. Scraped surfaces can also slide more easily than ground surfaces as the scraped surface reduces the negative effects of stick slip.
Where do you buy scraping supplies, such as the flat rollers, pigments, scraper handles, and straight edges, etc? I have a surface plate, but not a straight edge so I need to make or buy one. I've been looking for a scraper handle and other supplies, but no luck. I guess I will have to make one
Those things can be purchased from companies like Speedball for the roller, Dapra or Sandvik for the scraper, Challenge or Suburban for straight edges, etc. But, they are very expensive. I buy most thing on ebay, but you have to be patient.
Wes, never seen this before, not sure what scrapping is.....i am assuming you are trying to make the surface flat. can you tell me why you are doing this......can a machine do this? surface mill? so confused. but a great video
A surface grinder heats the workpiece causing it to distort. So the process is to grind it as close to perfect as you can, then fine tune the surface with scraping. It also allows the surface to hold oil better. Much like crosshatching in a cylinder bore.
This Video nees about a few thousand views more! Nice explanation, I like your style of scraping, not leaving a heavy burr at the end of the stroke.
Your german pronouciation of Biax was perfect! I have a Renz powerscraper too, but mine has adjustable stroke.
Thank you Stefan. I enjoy your channel. This type of scraping works for me, but everyone has their own style. Hand scraping is hard work no matter how you do it.
TH-cam is fascinating because you can learn how other pronounce words. I did study German for 1 year in college. I have probably forgotten most of it by now. There is not much opportunity to practice.
Wow! 3000 views. The most popular video I've ever made.
You did a great job covering this subject. I think this is the best scraping video I have seen.
This was incredibly helpful. The entire walkthrough of the different steps, seeing your workflow and everything. Just wow, big thanks for such amazing content.
Thank you Wes, you have such an awesomely broad range of talents that is really rare to see in these days of specialization . You always have a down to earth attitude that makes you a favourite with many viewers! Well done . Hey
Thank you so much for this video. Concrete dye and oil is the simplest mix for layout medium I have seen so far. Thank you again.
This is probably one of the best scraping videos I've ever seen. Very much down and dirty, not fancy and mystical like some make scraping out to be. I am going to try this method on my next scraping project. Very well done!
Scraping is not magic. However, it's very much about finding what works for you. All I can do is show you what I have found to work for me. I won't say it's the best way or the right way. It's a starting point.
Very helpful! Thank you for explaining and showing this process!
You've made rough precision scraping into a combat form!
Love it!
No sense messing around.
I've probably watched this vid 10-15 times lol...... Really hard to find a scraping videos that have both, a person that knows what their doing and is interesting to watch. I really hope your still thinking bout possibly doing more scraping vids Wes, maybe even with some of your insight on how you check geometry on dovetails and whatnot. Hope all is well and to see ya soon.
Unfortunately it doesn't appear that way.
Wonderful explanation and well shot. Thanks for helping us all out.
Thank you so much for your vids. It's great to see how somebody in the trade would do scraping, diagnoses and repair where time is $$. I also appreciate your concise delivery and great tips. I'm a new subscriber and just found your channel through Hobby Machinist. I hope you get time to do the cross slide dove tails on the Chinese lathe as I would love to see how you would approach it.
very interesting, this has just blown me away. thanks for posting this.
I really enjoyed your video. Fast or slow depending on need. Clear explanations. Thanks.
Great video. I learned more watching this 25 minute video than I did attending a "professional" 50 hour Biax scraping class.
Excellent tutorial.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge Sir!
God Bless.
Very cool! You and Stefan have the best vids I've seen on scraping! Thanks for making this. Subscribed!
Thanks. I need to make some more.
Well I was not expecting that, i was looking into scraping and Watch Wes Works comes up. Very helpful and interesting seeing how your Chanel has changed
Nice work Wes, thanks for sharing the process.
The angle block looks great.
Take care, Ed.
Thanks for the video. I learned a lot.
Thank you for such a well explained way to hand scrap.
Watched a few videos on it byt first time I have seen used two colours to pick up the high and low points.
From kiwi land.
So satisfying watching hand scraping
I've watched a lot of scraping videos and this must be the best. You have made the process practical as opposed to anal and you don't need to be Richard King or own a $1500 Biax to get a decent level flatness. Thanks from the UK !
BTW I came to your channel after a shoutout from Rainman Ray's Repairs - and he's never seen rust !
Good clear information which gives good overall concept of the process . Well done and thanks.
Learned a lot, thanks.
Nicely explained Wes, you are absolutely right about the roughing stage needs to be done right before moving on to the semi finishing strokes. I like the fact you talked about both print mediums, I've not used anything other than the oil based one here in the U K, but now I'm used to it I'm happy with it. just wished they made a contrasting colour, so now I might try and mix one up.
cheers for the upload, all the best, Mat
Thank you. I know some guys use the regular blue and just make up some red for contrast. It works well.
Thank you for this really great video.
Helpful vid, saw many valuable points and hints. Thanks a lot.
would like to add some comment.
Regular radial bearing case could be used to remove rough edges after scraping, instead of stone. To reduce abrasive exposure.
Also regarding dovetails, how do you clean them after stoning?
To work with hardly accessible surfaces like small dovetail inner parts, it is possible to create small scraper from stone\glass drill bit, spear headed. This "spear head" has almost same quality carbide as special scraper inserts. Despite the price difference, but it's a fact. Scrapers made out of drill bits rather well deal with soft cast iron like that coming from Chinese factories.
Their drawback is lesser ability to keep sharpness, but again taking into account the price...
Just remove extra metall at the base and flatten carbide insert in desired radius.
Best cutting angle is around 110-115 degrees.
Though i personally prefer to correct such surfaces in mill using some dedicated tool, like dovetail cutter, to decrease hand scraping amount as much as possible.
This is really an action which produces thoughts about finding more heavy intellect means to achieve desired results.
It is AMAZING how such a seemingly primitive technique can yield such precise results and still be in use today. I have seen old metal scraping films, but thought that the technique would have long been superseded by modern micro polishing techniques.
Great video good advice
Will file this one away. I'm potentially scraping on my next project
Fantastic video,
I learned a lot. Thank You.
Yellow makes a nice contrast to red or blue. Subscribed!
Great video, I have played with scraping and have had some mixed results, I like your method and explanation of how you approach your work.
It's easy to become frustrated with scraping, especially when trying to correct wear. It's a process that can't really be hurried along. Thanks for stopping by!
10:30 That's a sweet Buttress thread vise. I could see it being handy for scraping since it allows for such quick adjustment and you don't have to worry about cleaning chips out of the nut as often as you would if you used it on a machine. Thanks for the awesome video.
Buttress? More like buttrest
Well I leant something new! Good work
Hi Wes, thought I would pop back and let you know of a trick I just figured for a background colour - I used a sharpie over the surface and then a drop of mineral spirit to dissolve the sharpie mark - smeared it over and then in a minute or two the solvent was evaporated and I could print the regular oil based blue medium I use. Worked a treat and Ive plenty of sharpie colours ! Cheers Mat
I saw that in your video. Very clever.
I never even heard about this process until I watched a video by Lookcreations and just presumed all surface plates, surface tables and precision flat surface tools were done on a machine. The issue now is that I need to have a go at this in some way or another!
I just got sent over, like your methods. Enjoyed.
Thanks for coming by.
This guy is a genius.
Wes:Nice video and excellent explanation. I totally agree with Stefan; "There should be thousands of views". Regards: Larry
Loved it!
Nice on the pigments. This works so much better than canode!
Absolutely. I can deal with dirty hands. I just got some Prussian Blue powder to try out.
Great video!
Thank you.
As a former scraper from 1977 to 1983, I enjoyed watching someone else scraping, and agree with what you say about saving time by switching techniques as things progress. It took me a couple years to learn that, as I progressed in my skills. Old worn out machinery can be many thousandths off, and I was taught by other scrapers to do just what you do! I still have my old tools, Prussian blue, and red lead, and wonder if I can still do it, I used to be as good as you! I also lifted at the end of the short finishing stroke and gave it a left-handed curl, giving straightedges and surface plates a beautiful frosty appearance! Machine tool surfaces got a 12-14 point finish with good oil retention, alignment to other machine members was most important.
Wow whilst surfing through your old videos I came across this one on scraping. No doubt a useful skill to have but it comes with one definite attribute that of patience. I being lacking in that department couldn't be bothered. Metal engineering tolerances are a bit much for me I will stick to wood it is more forgiving. Interesting video and yet another example of your versatility.
Nice job Wes! Think you have the makings of an toolmaker.
You made the two you made really look nice natural to actually scrap with. I thought the copper, metal, wood, Delron were made in the 50's or 60's. We watched Stefan's Channel do scrapping at a school in Germany there and then back at his shop channel. You have a really nice setup, we are hopping to scrap one vintage machine we have to do. Thank you for our lesson, lots of practice roughing (proper prep) then finishing (great results) before we ever try this on our small machine. Half ways through the video I learn what you mean about leaning into the tool, hence the large Delron disk at the end of your tool.
Now wh u haven't I seen this tell now. I subscribed hope to see more scraping.
Nice !
thank so much.
After my 3W video tour I may have missed a few. Interesting procedure.
Great video! Nice overview on your scraping. One thing though, the Canode isn't actually water based, it's water soluble. It is very thick and a little sticky, as you say, as well as the other issues, but if you don't dilute it with water it will NEVER rust your work. I leave it on CI for days between scraping sessions. I'll try to find out what the carrier fluid is. If I need to thin it I've been using denatured alcohol. It flashes off quick and no rust issues. Keep up the great videos.
Thumbs up 👍 hand tool push it and go!
Hello Wes: I was referred to your channel from Sunppaa's channel - some very informative content - I just subscribed. Ian.
great videos! subscribed. thanks
Thanks.
Very helpful. You should think about writing up a book. Seriously!
Subscribed.
Very helpful video Wes, thanks very much for this! :) The visibility of the black spotting compound seems quite good, I think I'll go find some of that mortar color :) One thing I noticed, all the books and videos I've studied about scraping indicate that the individual strokes should be made side-by-side, in rows that are 45 degrees across the part. The claim is that it leads to chatter in a sliding surface if you line the strokes up in "vertical" rows. I don't suppose it matters much during roughing and it looked like you did the side-by-side stroke rows in the finish pass, but just thought I'd mention for whatever it's worth. I love the handmade scrapers, very practical :) Also, it looked like you position the part down just above your knees, is that so you can push the scraper with your hip? Btw, on the Canode, they say to "thin" that with very thin vegetable oil (safflower maybe); using water could explain some of the bad behavior it was exhibiting.
I have heard of others thinning Canode with window cleaner. I have not tried that. Window cleaner is mostly alcohol, so it seems like it would flash off too quickly.
Connely advocates the 45 degree rows in his book. I usually line my scraper up at 90 degrees, but the actual scrape marks are not 90 degrees to each other because of the way I lift out when scraping. The same thing happens with the Biax. The longer the stroke, the more you see the effect. The result is that the actual scrape marks are more like 45-60 degrees to each other.
You might say, you have to get to the point where your lows become the highs before you move on to finishing.
An angle plate is not a bearing surface.
Scraping a bearing surface requires small individual scrapes of about .0002-.0003” for oil retention.
And, flaking is to be done on the underside contact points.
This is what I learned in Richard King’s (Kingway) scraping class.
Nice thank you. How do you do the other side of the 90 degree angle
impressive
how to make other side perpendicular to that side and flat by scraping is the trouble that i get.considering doing it?great channel. THANKS
..."Chinese angle plate".....well, like Stefan Gotteswinter says...."You're getting a bunch of cast iron parts as a sort of 'kit' to finish.....Excellent finish...!
Nice job Wes....too bad a guy cannot like on every view!....about the 6th time I watched, and sure I will watch again! Trying to get up to speed a bit, before taking one of Rich's classes, but not sure that my "old" arms will take it. I did pick up a Biax, but am sure it is best to start with the basics ....thanks for the detailed explanation.....off to watch you Biax vid again.
Excellent video, on the blue, have you use Permatex Prusian Blue, its easy to clean and it does not stain your plates,
Yes I have used it. It works well.
Good tool to spred the blue is peace of leather glue to peace of wood . you can feel the tickness by the resistance while spreading .
I threw out several hundred pounds of that concrete dye a while back. I could have made a 100x lifetime supply of scraping pigment, in all the colors of the rainbow!
Thanks for posting videos Wes, very good instruction. Both you and Stephen Gotteswinter provide informative instructional vids.
I used this knowledge to scrape in a cross-slide on s small chickety-china lathe, worked well.
Do you take requests? You do everything relating to machining equipment, manual and NC, cornucopia of knowledge.
I have a haas sl30 ( sorry ) , and want to know how do maintenance on the turret. You did a very good turret alignment episode on the slant bed. Curious if haas turrets need to be disassembled and cleaned/lubricated periodically.
Thanks Wes J.
I believe that Haas uses compressed air to clamp the turret which is odd. I don't know of any other builder doing that. Other than keeping the curvic coupling clean, there's not much that needs to be done to the turret.
It is interesting how were made first machine tools when there were no machine tools?
Years ago, scrapers used red lead and prussian blue for the layout medium....
Thank you for such a great video, it answered a lot of my questions missed by others... any chance on some details on your scraper blades and their shapes? it's really hard to find pictures and details on the exact shape and grinds :)
I will try to make more scraping videos in the future. I want to make a video that covers some of the gaps in other videos and a video about alignments. Scraping is a boring and tedious job, so it's difficult to make a scraping video that's actually watchable.
It's very watchable as your always imparting knowledge! It deserves more views and likes as it's one of (if not the) best video on scraping
Could you add ballast weight to the other side to balance your surface pressures? Just a thought
Is that Rodan I hear in the background. I hear a lot of birds. Beautiful video though. Excellent.
Thanks for you respect video and vork👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼bad so you not demonstrate in vork,s Switzerland tools 😎
This Old Wes... Thanks for watching! (said as a compliment)
I still haven't quit figured out how you get your marking die to that consistency. Yours looks like a heavy grease and not too sticky. When I mix mine with 30 weight or way oil no matter how thick I mix it eventually slumps to the bottom of the container. If its really think it acts almost like a non newtonian fluid and is very sticky. It seems to work well and sometimes I thin it with denatured alcohol that helps, I'm just curious. I think I have some of that old blueish green x-tra heavy wheel grease, I guess I could try that.
Thanks for sharing! This is awesome. How do you know that you're not making the surface "out of square" when scraping?
That's a whole other subject. I'll cover that in a future video.
It is interesting how were made rotary parts of the first machine tools in the world without using a machine tools
Hello. Thank you for your great video. Would u please tell me how to clean oil based pigment from surface plate. Does it clean by ammonia or wd 40? Best regards. Thank you
Great video. I learned a whole lot here. One question. How do you maintain the perpendicularity of the angle block? 90.000 degrees, means 90.000 degrees, right? Do you do rough in, then measure a whole bunch of times for angle, average the results, adjust the rough in and go again?
I swear I replied to your question, but it seems to be gone now. Scraping for alignment is a whole other subject. The best way is to compare the angle plate to a known master square. If you don't have a known master square, you have to use 2 or 3 angle plates and compare them to each other while scraping and eventually the errors will cancel out. The Moore book "Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy" covers the topic thoroughly.
Typically the alignment is set in the rough scraping. You would check periodically while finish scraping to be sure you do not move the surface out of alignment. It's far more tedious than just scraping a surface flat.
Good info on scraping Wes! subscribed
ATB, Robin
Thank you. I really enjoy your videos as well.
Have you tried Prussian blue easily found at parts stores
Very nice work. You may not be Robin Renzetti but who is?
Interesting! What about the squareness? How square did it end up to the other face?
I've got a set of big machinist parallels about 3ft long and a lonely 2ft parallel (or maybe vise versa I forget which size I have a set of) and I'm wondering how you decide between having a smooth finish or a scraped finish. I know putting them on a grinding machine is a good "roughing" (relatively speaking) procedure prior to lapping or scraping for overall parallelism, but I'm unsure about the advantages to scrapped verses a smooth surface for the final product. I am aware that the scrapped finish helps distribute a film of oil when it is used for something like machine ways, but given the use of machinist parallels I hope to not see the same sliding motion experienced by the machine ways. Truthfully I don't own any machinery remotely big enough like a big horizontal boring mill or metal planer to make regular use out of the parallels, but I would still like the project of doing some finishing work on them. I'd love your advice before spending lots of time hand scraping them, or even more time lapping them into a surface finish that can be wrung too.
Thanks in advance,
-Adam
One advantage of a scraped surface is there is no heating to cause the work piece to distort like there is with grinding. Another is that the surface holds oil better, much like cross hatching in a cylinder bore. Not so much an issue with angle plates and straight edges, but very important for machine ways.
اي نوع من الاصباغ تستعمل هل يمكن احد اخباري
That scraping looked tight like a tiger
My lathe (South Bend 9) has a wee bit of 'ridging on the last 20% of the Cast Iron Bearing surface chuck side.....they say to hone off any high spots but don't try to stone it down......any advise, which honing device, and what technique? The spindle has a few deposits of CI corresponding to the bearing....ordered a set of EZ-Lap diamond hoaners and have access to another lathe..
I like your printing dye. Do you think that chalk line powder would work like the mortar pigment?
I don't know. Possibly. It would be pretty easy to test.
To work for printing, a solid pigment has to be particles smaller than the thickness of the color film. That's *really* tiny, and I don't think chalk particles are small enough.
Wes, is the brick pigment iron oxide?
What is the reason for doing this? Why wouldn't you use a lapping table?
👍🏻
that's the first time i seen scraping. i have used hand stone on heads and motor blocks. had no problem . Just used Wd-40.
Nice job explaining how to scrape, Wes!
I'm very curious about your home-made marking medium. I've used both Dykem high-spot blue and Canode (both yellow and blue) and I agree about the downsides of water based spotting inks.
Is there any particular mortar pigment you'd recommend? Would artists dry pigments work just as well? (Seems like 4oz of pigment would be sufficient for plenty of scraping).
I REALLY like the high contrast of your marking media, but both the red and black appear to be awfully thick. Is there any problem with the grain size of the pigment?
As you mention, I'm used to spreading Canode so thinly that it's quite transparent. I'm used to spreading the yellow base layer so thinly that it's dry to the touch and just the lightest haze of yellow.
That Canode can be spread so thin is good, but the low contrast markup (and non-ideal lighting in my shop) is killing my eyes. If dry pigments and oil can be spread just as thin, doesn't dry out, provides high contrast, and works even reasonably well for scraping blue-ups, I'm going to be seriously indebted. :-)
There is no silver bullet. The homebrew I use works well for roughing and scraping machine tool ways. It's not the greatest for precision scraping more than 20 points per square inch. You can do it, but you have to be really careful how thick you apply it. Also, the thickness of the paste is really important. If it's too thick, you can't spread it enough to get a fine print. If it's too thin it won't transfer.
The pigment is a form of iron oxide. The particle size is supposed to be 3 microns, so its extremely fine. Mixed with oil, it's not abrasive in any way. It's basically a grease, which is normally oil thickened with something like clay or soap.
There are lots of recipes. I know a guy who still uses red lead mixed with a type of wax. It's actually a dry cake. He spreads it using a rag wet with wd-40. Then he uses Dykem blue as the contrasting color.
I think I will make a video on the subject in the near future.
Hey, thanks for the quick reply! I'm definitely going to give it a try. Even if I end up using something else for the final stages (I've even used the haze from dried alcohol for the ultimate final check) it's still a huge win for me if it provides better contrast. I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.
Please do make a video on the subject!
I've used oil based pigments mixed with all purpose grease. Applied thin it works quite well. When you're done for the day, to clean your hands just use any vegetable oil like corn or safflower to "soap" up your hands and then dry them with a paper towel. Oil cleans up oil better than water and won't lead to dry, cracked skin like repetitively using soap and water does. This cleanup trick works just as well if you get your hands greasy working on your car a lot.
Knew what scraping was but have never seen it done.
Nice vidio I am learning too but Chinese angle plate! Would it worth scraping cause you leave it for a year it would twist distort etc.I don't trust Chinese cause they cast in the cheapest way to get the object look alike. My two cents is you rubbing stone should have hole in the middle and you should stick to figure eight and spend more time on hand lapping(remove sharp point).
Yes, the casting is terrible. It's full of gas bubbles and impossible to scrape correctly.
are those carbide tipped scraper
Yes
where can you find that massive counter top? Also where could I find a straight edge? Thanks. Awesome video btw and sub up!!
If you're talking about the granite, that is not countertop. It is a 'surface plate', and its only purpose is to be very, incredibly, flat and stable. Countertops aren't thick enough to be stable, and are nowhere near flat enough. On top of that, many countertops aren't even solid granite - they're composites, meaning they're granite 'gravel' mixed with epoxy.
Starret makes all the precision tools you could dream of
For someone that doesn't know, what's the benefit of scraping vs. having it machined?
Late to the party, but the advantage of scraping over a machined (ground) surface is that the scraped surface has slight depressions between the high spots that can hold oil. So if you have two sliding surfaces, the scraped one will hold oil between the surfaces whereas the ground surface can squish the oil out. Scraped surfaces can also slide more easily than ground surfaces as the scraped surface reduces the negative effects of stick slip.
Where do you buy scraping supplies, such as the flat rollers, pigments, scraper handles, and straight edges, etc? I have a surface plate, but not a straight edge so I need to make or buy one. I've been looking for a scraper handle and other supplies, but no luck. I guess I will have to make one
Those things can be purchased from companies like Speedball for the roller, Dapra or Sandvik for the scraper, Challenge or Suburban for straight edges, etc. But, they are very expensive. I buy most thing on ebay, but you have to be patient.
Wes Johnson I know where you can get some castings hehe.
Enco online has HSS hand scrapers for 7.00 each. Good item to get started with.
Wes, never seen this before, not sure what scrapping is.....i am assuming you are trying to make the surface flat. can you tell me why you are doing this......can a machine do this? surface mill? so confused. but a great video
A surface grinder heats the workpiece causing it to distort. So the process is to grind it as close to perfect as you can, then fine tune the surface with scraping. It also allows the surface to hold oil better. Much like crosshatching in a cylinder bore.